After a few lessons for Kiki, I’ve decided to post some of the tricks that she has mastered over the months. The Turn-A-Round trick was the second trick that i taught her after mastering the basic step up and down commands. This trick is consider as a basic trick, suppose to be possibly learned within a day, but unfortunately my dear, Kiki took nearly 12 days to learn. Remembering that 17th September 2007 was when i introduced this trick to her, and mastered on 27th September 2007 Oh gosh! I’m almost going to label her as slow learner. Haha.

Anyway as long she master the trick, who cares how long she took to learn. I must admit you sure have to be extremely patient with this feather friend. I’ve gotta treat her like 3 years old kid learning to walk and play. In fact, i pretty excited every time she did this trick whenever i cued for it.

Anyone can train your parrot, is a fairly simple trick. Most important you need a T-Stand and your parrot’s favourite treat (For Kiki, she adores millets. Millet is not in her daily diet, so she will be more motivated when doing tricks), before you can start training your parrot.

How do I teach her?
I trained Kiki by placing her on the T-stand so she can concentrate without fidgeting around. My verbal cue for the trick is “Turn-A-Round”, you can think other shorter word depending on your preference. I start off by holding the treat to the side of Kiki (her right-wing side). When she start moving to the side, i bring the treat to her back. This lured her to the back. Next i bring the treat to her left-wing side, and she’s turned to the side. Finally bring the treat back to front, so she returned back to front. This way she completed one full cycle, and i rewarded her with the treat. Don’t forget to praise her. For me, i never failed to praise Kiki, “Good Girl!” when she did the right thing.

I continued to train her this way for several times of sessions of 10-15mins each. Once she’s comfortable and doing the cycle hesitation upon my verbal cue, and also without holding the treat on my hand to lure her, I start to bring the hand cue further. Slowly enhancing my hand cue, to only by turning my hand in circular motion.

Always remember to be patient to your parrot. Although it may seems to simple easy trick and shouldn’t take up too much time, but your parrot might surprise you!

Kiki took 2weeks to learn this treat!